


A room shut tight, without dreams

by Zara Hemla (zarahemla)



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:36:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7741867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarahemla/pseuds/Zara%20Hemla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't need to ask: he has been in prison, and he already knows. </p>
<p>Set between s06e06 "Shock Wave" and s06e07 "Reunion," directly as Fiona gets out of jail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A room shut tight, without dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Most munificent and bountiful thanks to JET, who always knows where the paragraph breaks should go, and who should do what with whom. Her magnificence has no end and her benificience is everlasting.

_Darling girl. Picklock._  
_-Mary Oliver_  
  


The door to the prison clanks open and Fiona is spared another moment of _will they won't they_ when she sees them standing there waiting for her: Michael leaning back against the car with a little smile, Jesse with his hands in his pockets grinning at her with relief on his face, and Sam looking just as solid and comforting as ever in his usual Hawaiian shirt. She loses the battle with dignity and ends up running into Michael's arms, and he buries his face in her shoulder as she hears the door begin its rumbling close again. _I'm never going back there, never ever ever,_ she thinks. _Never again on purpose._

On the drive home, Michael does something that Fiona can’t ever remember him doing before: he lets Sam drive the car, with Jesse in the front, and he gets into the back seat with her, crowding her with his long legs. Jesse puts her bags in the trunk and climbs in the front, carrying on a soft inconsequential conversation with Sam, navigating the way up 380th Street toward Route 1, giving them a sort of privacy.

Michael has never been the kind of person who volunteers his touch -- he is always more likely to move away with a quip to defuse the moment -- but he can’t seem to stop touching her, and she attributes it to her absence until he takes a deep breath and commences talking about Anson, and Nate, and the deep bullet hole that gouged through the both of them and into the bright-lit casino sign behind them. The blood on Nate’s face and clothes, and the help that came too late, and Anson lying alone and facedown and finally silent ( _and good riddance to_ that _motherfucker_ , Fiona thinks) while Michael tried and failed to keep his brother alive.

Even Jesse and Sam are quiet in the front seat as he finishes, Jesse staring out the window and Sam driving stoic and tight-lipped, and Fiona is crying silently, for Michael and for herself, because she had always thought of Nate as an unofficial brother. Nate had never been as competent as Michael, and he had often said or done the wrong thing, but his intentions had always been good. He had been the happy-go-lucky opposite of Michael's controlled planning, the ray of joking sunshine to Michael's serious cloud of gloom. He had liked Fiona from the first, and he would blush every time she caught him looking at her with a sort of awed respect on his face. 

And of course he would watch Michael when Michael wasn’t looking with a helpless kind of love and yearning: he just wanted Michael to love him for who he was, and Michael couldn’t do it. He is admitting it to her now, of course when it is too late, gripping her hand tightly and with his eyes open and gaze fixed past her. 

"I yelled at him because he made mistakes and I punished him for being untrained, even though I was the one that asked him to come along. I lost my temper, Fi, and he forgave me and he tried to help me and . . . I never got to tell him I was sorry. "

The dead always left unfinished business, and siblings especially seemed to slip away with words unsaid. She had tormented herself about Claire for years, imagining any other ending to their last conversation.

"Nate knew you were sorry, " whispers Fiona.

"Did he?" says Michael, with a not-so-rare amount of self-loathing in his voice. Fiona squeezes his hand again and puts her head on his shoulder and they are quiet for awhile.

The interminable ride from the prison finally concludes with Sam taking the exit from the highway that leads to Maddie's house, and Fiona says, "Michael, I don't think your mother will . . ." but he cuts her off with a firm and quiet "She will, Fi." 

And indeed Maddie welcomes them inside by giving Fiona an enormous hug and ushering her to a chair. 

"Fiona, I'm so glad to see you," she says, and she looks weary and older than her years but sounds sincere. "I made spinach salad. Well, I picked it up from the Winn-Dixie. I bet you didn't get any fresh vegetables in that horrible place."

"Thank you so much, Maddie," says Fiona, staring hungrily at the spinach. Everyone helps themselves to salad, and there are beers in the fridge for Sam, and turkey and cheese sandwiches, except Michael doesn't eat anything, just sits in a chair and puts his hand on her thigh and stares off into space while Maddie bustles around not talking to him.

Fiona remembers how it was when Benny died, how angry Maddie was, and how it hurt Michael, how they spent all that time punishing each other uselessly. Westens were very good at that, in the short term.

After the dishes are cleared, Maddie finally sits down next to her and asks if she is OK, if she has everything she needs, if she wants to stay here a night or two before going back to the loft. "Just to adjust to things, honey," she says, and Fiona gets the feeling that Maddie herself might want the company. She looks over at Michael, who doesn't seem to be listening, and then back at Maddie, and opens her mouth just as Maddie says, "Never mind. I just . . . I just want to make sure you have a place where you feel safe. Since everyone around Michael is dying these days."

"Thank you, Maddie," says Fiona, trying to be politic, and Michael stands up and goes straight out the front door, closing it quietly behind him. "But I just really want to go home."

"Maddie," says Sam's warning voice from the table. "You can't lash out at him like that. It's not fair."

Maddie whips around in her chair, losing her temper in that quick, characteristically Westen way. "He killed my son, Sam!"

"Come on, Miz Westen, " chides Jesse from the kitchen, where he is drying dishes. "Nate made a choice to put himself in danger. He disobeyed Mike's direct order." 

"I told him to keep Nate safe!" shouts Maddie. Her face crumples and Fiona leans forward and puts an arm around her as she begins to cry. She holds on to Fiona tightly, as tightly as Michael had done, and sobs out, "I'm so glad you're home, honey. At least I didn't lose you too."

"Of course not," murmurs Fiona, but she is tired and worried about Michael, and she makes pleading eye contact with Sam. 

He comes to peel Maddie off her, saying, "You're exhausted. Come lay down on the couch and rest." 

Fiona sees that she's settled, kisses her on the cheek, and squeezes Sam's hand, then slips out the door to find Michael sitting in the Charger with the engine running. He has his sunglasses on and she can't see his eyes, but there is no expression on his face. Her phone buzzes, a text from Jesse: _I'm parked here, I'll take Sam home. Go get some sleep._

She texts back _thank you Jesse_ and climbs into the passenger side. 

"You can stay with her if you want," says Michael, in his most colorless I'm-just-mentioning-a-fact voice. Fiona smiles at the absurdity of him. 

"Well I don't want, Michael. I want to go home." At that, the ghost of a smile crosses his face, and he guns the engine and steps on the gas. 

  
  
* * *  
  


The loft is exactly as clean as when she left -- Michael is naturally a very tidy person -- but she notices that her snow globes are sparkling in the late afternoon sun through the window. He has obviously dusted and polished them for her, which is just the kind of sweet thing that he would think of. 

He carries her bags in and shuts the door behind them, and she almost gets off a thank-you before he puts his hands on her waist, gripping her really, like she might float away, and his mouth is on hers and she puts one arm around his neck and the other hand up to feel his heartbeat.

When he lets her go for a second, she whispers in his ear, "I thought about you in prison every night. Those were some long nights, Michael." He turns his head and looks at her for a long moment, and she relishes the fire in his eyes. He grabs her gently under the arse, hoisting her up easily, platform sandals and all, and she locks her legs around his hips and grins down from her new height.

"I need you, Fi," he says, "I need you," an admission he usually would not make unless it's dragged from him, and he kisses down her neck and pushes the straps of her white sundress off of her shoulders. She feels the cold metal of the door against her back and shivers at the heat of his tongue, feels the rasp of his skin and the soft material of his shirt under her hand, and she says, "I need you too," and it's true.

Afterward he carries her to the bed, puts on his boxer shorts, and goes around opening all the windows, which is another thing she knows he is doing just for her. Michael doesn't like to sleep with open windows, but she loves to feel the wind off the water and smell the salty ocean. They have fought about it many times and usually he wins, but tonight she just smiles and stretches out on the bed and listens to the music seeping in from the club downstairs. Later when the club closes and the cars drive away, the only sound will be the canal lapping on the pilings, the occasional boat motor, and sea gulls calling to one another.

It's so different from prison, where silence is only available in solitary, where women are talking and rustling and moaning and yelling at one another all day and night, where women shank each other and fuck each other in broad daylight, where guards rattle the bars with their nightsticks at 2am just to drive everyone bananas. 

Michael hadn't asked her about prison, about how it was, and that is a great relief to her. He doesn't need to ask: he has been in prison, and he already knows.

When they were together in Ireland, Fiona knew, and she knew it even deeper after he left and she couldn't find anyone to replace him, that the two of them understood one another in ways that no one else ever could. Their shared experience was so similar that they could communicate without talking, body to body or just by gaze. Now they have something more in common: a sibling in the wrong place at the wrong time shot by a bullet not meant for them. One more meaningless death in a parade of meaningless deaths.

He finishes opening the windows and the sun is almost down, the last rays of it keeping the sky just a little bit pink. Then he comes and lies down with her and is asleep almost immediately while she silently strokes the long line of his back, the muscles that worked so hard for her. The long fingers that couldn't save Nate, that couldn't save everyone; the crinkle, finally smoothed out, between his eyes. 

She turns her head, staring out the open balcony doors, and thinks about the night rituals in the prison: evening roll call, the last transactions before the cells close, the long hours of gurgling pipes and hissing whispers and buzzing fluorescent lights. The way that prison confines you, makes you sit still while your life passes you by. 

She thinks of Ayn, prepping her stores for the next day, bribing who she has to bribe, dozing in her bunk in a room where there is no darkness ever. Darkness is a luxury for women in prison, and Fiona feels it over her now like a deep blanket.

_Joy cometh in the morning_ , she thinks muzzily, _doesn't it go something like that? But not the next morning: it takes so many mornings, and so many long nights._ Her hand stops still on Michael's back, keeping a connection by touch as salt air settles on her skin and dance music floats through the window, a low ticking heartbeat for the waking dreamers. 

\--end--

**Author's Note:**

> Title and epigraph from Mary Oliver's poem "Now comes the long blue cold": 
> 
> Now comes the long blue cold  
> And what shall I say but that some  
> Bird in the tree of my heart  
> Is singing.
> 
> The same heart that only yesterday  
> Was a room shut tight, without dreams.
> 
> Isn't it wonderful the cold wind and  
> Spring in the heart inexplicable.  
> Darling girl. Picklock.


End file.
